1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of tree guying systems that generally comprise a tree trunk grasping collar and anchoring (guy) wires that extend therefrom to an immoveable surface or object such as the ground. These systems are utilized by the landscape contractors, arborists and tree nursery professions to provide additional support during wind storms to newly planted trees until their roots are firmly anchored to the ground by natural growth and they are self-supporting.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Tree guying systems are used to support young or newly transplanted trees whose roots have not had a chance to grow into the undisturbed earth sufficiently to prevent them from overturning or otherwise exposing their roots to the air under the influence of strong surface winds. Probably the crudest form of a tree guying system is a staff pounded into the ground next to the young tree trunk and lashed thereto with rope or other tying means. This practice has long since fallen from favor because the staff often disrupts and breaks vital root fibers of the already established tree and further causes the tree bark to abrade during contact with the staff, especially when the wind blows the tree back and forth. Later development involved removing the staff from adjacent the tree trunk and guying the tree with a series of wires or ropes that stretched from a collar around the tree trunk to some distant support to provide a more favorable environment to the roots.
Tree guying systems have been the subject of a number of patents. U.S. Pat. No. 720,667 to William Cartwright discloses a rigid collar fastened around the tree trunk and adapted for fastening to a vertical staff driven into the ground along side the trunk. Inside the collar, a second, yieldable concentric collar is placed fully around the tree trunk and held spaced apart from the main collar through a series of metal springs. This device presents two distinct disadvantages in addition to the previously described problems with a vertical staff. First, the full collar fastened about the tree trunk tends to strangle the tree and to prevent the passage of vital tree-growing fluids from the root system upward through the xylem layer to the limbs of the tree. Vital fluids pass upward and downward in the cambium layer just under the bark of the tree, and where this fluid flow is restricted by a close-fitting fully-encircling collar, the development of the tree is retarded. Secondly, the rigid outer collar of the guying system requires physical disengagement from the tree trunk after the tree has reached a self-supporting size. Although this is not a serious problem with isolated tree guying systems, the extra manpower required for disengaging a large number of rigid collars in an area of widespread landscaping gives rise to excessive costs.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,501,255 granted to R. O. Bell discloses an elongated split collar for straightening a tree trunk. This collar encompasses not only the full circumference of the tree but an extensive vertical section thereof and is held together with a pair of rigid "C" clamps. The extensive coverage of the tree trunk by the tightly squeezed rigid collar halves will seriously affect the development of the tree during its young life and further requires the aforesaid additional manpower to remove the guying system after sufficient growth is accomplished.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,226,822 to J. P. Lichtenthaler discloses a resilient strip of material used to lash a vertical staff against a tree trunk. In addition to the disadvantages of using a vertical staff adjacent a tree trunk that penetrates through the developing root system, when the strip is tightly wrapped around the tree trunk, it reduces fluid flow in the xylem layer and adversely affects tree growth, and when the strip is loosely or partially wrapped around the tree trunk, it will abrade the tree as the tree moves, as in the wind damaging the bark and making the tree susceptible to disease and fungal and/or insect attack.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,505,761 granted by J. Prieur discloses another type of tree support for use with a vertically oriented staff pounded into the ground adjacent the tree trunk. This support has a combination of the previously discussed disadvantages.
All of these patents exhibit the underlying disadvantages of adverse effects on tree health and/or tree growth combined with the requirement for extra manpower to remove the system from the tree after sufficient tree growth is present.
This invention eliminates both the serious cambium layer strangulation problems of previous designs and the requirement physically to detach the tree support system from the tree after self-sufficiency has been attained. The invention comprises a low-cost tree guying system specifically involving a tree trunk collar that is held away from the trunk in concentric relation thereto by a plurality of inwardly projecting lugs of yieldable material contacting the tree with a very low surface area and that features a release mechanism that causes the collar to disengage from the tree trunk and fall to the ground after a predetermined amount of tree trunk expansion that is concomitant with the vertical growth of the tree to a height and size wherein it becomes self-supporting and proper rooting is assured. A similar type of collar is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 497,853 granted to James Wright, but that collar surrounds a supporting staff or upright rather than a tree trunk and, therefore, has no release mechanism. Once the tree guying system of this invention is affixed to the trunk of a tree, the tree will be able to root and grow normally and the collar of the guying system will disengage form the tree under the action of tree expansion alone thus eliminating the need for further personal attention.